muscle memory
by daggers.silver
Summary: he visits every thursday morning.


A/N: lol so. the first episode of season four. this is absolute garbage in comparison but. i don't really care because i wrote it in like thirty minutes for myself and for archie and fred and lowkey for luke because i have nothing else i can do really to honor him but write shitty riverdale fanfic. i actaully really hate this because of how little thought i'm putting into it or even time, it's just short and brief and 100% fueled by my post-episode feelings. but i kind of like that i hate it too because i don't know why, i just do that with my 'art' sometimes.

hate it, love it, read it? leave your thoughts regarding it or the episode or just luke? cause i think we're all really fucking sad but also just full of love too. i miss him and i'll continue to do so even if it's just missing his presence in a shitty tv show because he made my life just that much better with it.

vague spoilers for season 4 / 4x01

rated g cause it's super short and passive and surface-layer-y

lyrics from river rocket - swiss army man ost (one of my fave songs in general and the one i listened to while whipping this up)

* * *

_you just have to remember_  
_that we're all here for a purpose_  
_and the universe picks it's time_

* * *

he visits every thursday morning.

the first time he woke with a gradual tide of clarity that brought with it a very simple realization, a first, _the first_ anniversary of its kind not a week after the funeral, he found himself downstairs stood in the garage's threshold in a blink that felt timeless in of itself before staring between his dad's truck and the jalopy until the sun glared at him through the windowpanes and washed everything in shades of gold.

it wasn't until his mom eventually woke and found him there that he returned to the land of the living once more, fell back into motion in a blink as he slide behind the truck's wheel and made his way to riverdale–(the town with pep!)–'s cemetery.

it was muscle memory from there.

he visits every thursday morning even if it means he's late for school once it kicks back up again. even if it means pitying looks of the closest thing to understanding the teachers can offer that slowly devolve to swallowed impatience as the months drone on to the next and the next 'til the next new year comes and goes. he visits even if it means losing sleep he can't afford to, if it means dozing off in class, if it means dragging that potent disappointment on behind him like a corpse as his grades begin to dip and his friends start casting him more beseeching looks than usual.

he just has to do better.

he _can._

and he does.

because he can do both at once. he can visit every thursday morning and cling to this mourning as if it's his last sunrise even as each morning offers another while still tackling his studies with a renewed vigor at the same time, while assuaging his friends' concern, while placating his mother's worry, _he can._

and he does.

he pulls out his guitar for the first time in years and has to remind himself how to tune it, how to hold its neck in his fingers and strum the chords hands bigger than his at the time guided into existence. he relearns it in tandem with how he learned before and takes it with him to play at the base of a tombstone until he can't feel his fingertips anymore and each note is harmonized with hurt as well as healing.

he dreams of blood and guns and grease and wrenches and calloused hands holding his own. he dreams of a world he dad didn't get to see, dreams of music and football and vintage cars and construction companies.

he dreams until it's muscle memory, morning routine, wakes on monsoon waves coaxed stagnant and makes music he can't say he's proud of but he's not disappointed in either, and he graduates alongside his best friends in the golden heat of a midsummer rain.

because he never thought he'd get there.

here.

he visits on a thursday morning, and he finds his mother there as well.

she grasps both his hands in her smaller ones and tells him how proud she is to call him her son.

she holds his face in her hands and tells him how proud _he_ would be too, and archie plays his newest track for an audience of two instead of one.

he writes until it's muscle memory, nightly routine, falls asleep to midsummer cadence washed in shades of gold and becomes someone he can't say he's proud of but that clock-stiffened corpse lags further behind less and less potent as the months drone on to the next and the next 'til the next new year comes and goes.

he visits on a thursday morning, and he forgoes checking the clock, walks with his head held high in the breeze versus hunched low to the earth for the first time in a long time, the first anniversary of its kind spent with lips upturned and eyes watching the trees sway above in rhythmic canopy instead of the grass wither underfoot. the skies venture on in perfect blue offing and still dare trickle gold on winter mornings, fingertips woven red and throbbing and numb just to break the quiet, or perhaps complete it.

sometimes he likes to pretend the distant creak of wind in the floorboards belongs to that of the greatest man he knew, knows, plays for once a week and every day between until he can learn to play for himself.

he's still learning.

he _will._

* * *

he visits every thursday morning, and he remembers.

he remembers shades of gold and winter mornings and warm hands holding his own, guiding a boy to man into existence. he remembers the blood and the guns as well as the grease and the wrenches, the old coaxing the new. he remembers a world his dad got to see, and tries his best to fine tune the one he didn't.

he remembers until it's muscle memory, daily routine, lives in the ocean as he tries to draw it up to meet the sky.

he visits every thursday morning.

and he lives.

* * *

_everything everywhere matters to everything_

* * *

A/N: i wanted to write something longer and more active and deeper than this. and i might (hopefully) at some other point as this season continues to air, but i'm okay with this feeling half-assed if it means it gets to be a simple little snapshot of what i'm feeling right after this particular episode. it's also nearing a reasonable hour to sleep and i slept like shit last night so maybe i'll wake up tomorrow and wanna delete this immediately but wtv, carpe deim.

i love you all. 3

and you, luke. thank you for sharing these pieces of yourself with us.


End file.
